


Of Girls And Wolves

by calenlily



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/F, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 00:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/pseuds/calenlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They called her wolf - she-wolf, wolf bitch, there were many variations. They called her predator, outcast, inhuman, depraved, because she would not conform to their expectations or live by their rules.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Girls And Wolves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [butforthegrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butforthegrace/gifts).



> Your comment about have Feelings about Little Red Riding Hood relating to female sexuality caught my interest, and the idea kind of took on a life of its own, and then there was this Victorian femmeslash thing. Enjoy!
> 
> Thanks to my beta, moviemom44.

_They called her wolf - she-wolf, wolf bitch, there were many variations. They called her predator, outcast, inhuman, depraved, because she would not conform to their expectations or live by their rules._

 _But she took the name they gave her in insult and wore it like a badge of honor. They spoke of her as dangerous, so dangerous she would be. They exiled her to the outskirts of their society, so she claimed those fringes for her territory and woe betide any who should cross her there._

***

"Once there was a little girl; a sweet, innocent little girl, which was really to say that she was sheltered and naive."

Never before would I have considered myself naive. On the contrary, I was often scolded for my impertinent curiosity, for knowing things proper young ladies shouldn't know. That was how I ended up on this road in the first place, for Mother thought it prudent that I depart London somewhat early for the end of the Season this year.

I learned just how naive I truly was when she showed up.

"But the girl did not stay on the straight and narrow path little girls are cautioned to keep to. She was curious about the wilds she saw beyond, the things her guardians would not tell her about. She could not resist stepping aside to investigate, to catch just a glimpse of the world that was beyond her experience. _What harm could it do?_ she thought."

I had heard this part of the road was known for being a frequent haunt of highwaymen. I thought dreamily that it might be exciting to meet a highwayman, while at the same time convinced with all the conviction of the innocent that surely it would never happen to me.

"Only she was not alone as she had thought. For a wolf, the mistress of that wild place she trespassed on, was watching her. She was startled when the wolf appeared and greeted her. As they talked only of idle pleasantries, she relaxed, reassured. But the wolf took her measure in that time, seeing how easily she yielded to the temptation of suggestions for further diversions in the wild, how she was ripe with the fresh blossoming of womanhood, how she watched the wolf with growing fascination as her initial apprehensions eased."

I had so many romantic fancies about what such a creature would look like that I was caught quite unaware when I actually crossed paths with one of the most notorious of highwaymen - the one who was in fact a woman, who was called the She-Wolf. Never did I expect that the slim dark woman I met at the inn where we'd stayed the night before and chatted with about the various roads through the country could be such a one as she.

Never once did I suspect until she revealed herself, sitting in my own carriage.

"I was that girl."

She sprawled lazily on the seat across from me, seemingly entirely relaxed, but I could tell if I tried to bolt she would be on me in a minute. The cloak she had worn to disguise herself cast off, she wore trousers and a dark close-fitting vest over a loose white shirt. A rapier glimmered at her side. Somehow her mens' dress only emphasized a sort of savage femininity.

"The wolf is the captain of the infamous ship that flies the black flag with a bleeding heart and crossed swords, who takes the girl as her greatest prize when she plunders the ship that carries her. ...Or the wolf is a woman in the poorest part of London who makes a living by her sword. Or - " a smirking grin, "the wolf is a highwayman who ambushes the girl's carriage and slips into her lady companion's place. It doesn't matter, really; the variations are many. I am far from the first to play the part of the wolf, nor will I be the last, just as I was neither first nor last to be the girl - nor will you be."

I was not sure what it was that first clued me in to the fact that the woman traveling with me was not the same woman I set out from London with. I'd been studying her since she revealed herself, trying to figure it out. Perhaps it was something in the lines of her face, showing more strength than the ladies I was acquainted with. Perhaps it was something in the set of her eyes, narrow and uncannily piercing. I thought most likely it was something in her smile, which was almost obscene with self-satisfaction and the knowledge of secrets.

I could not seem to look away, and I hated her for it.

"There are those who call on hunters for aid, who call their naivety virtue and seek to protect it at all costs - those who would rather be passive and docile and let others protect them. They will be welcomed back into the fold, though likely they will ever after be considered somewhat soiled and their story told as a warning to others, but they will think themselves lucky to have escaped as they did, and all will agree that it could have been so much worse. They are welcome to their hunters."

It did not occur to me at first to cry for help, and once it did I could not seem to rouse myself to do so. It was not that I thought it futile or feared for the consequences if I tried. No, the truth is there was something oddly compelling about her. It was as if she was challenging me, and I found that for some reason I was loathe to be found lacking in her eyes; I lost the will to truly want to be rescued.

I thought I might hate her more for that.

"But you, I think, are not among them. I think you long for more. I think you have spirit, brains, and perhaps a bit of darkness under the veneer of refinement and docility you have been forced to grow. I think you are drawn to the forbidden, even fascinated by the wicked. I think you are coming into womanhood and are gripped by visceral desires that you are not accustomed to, desires you do not understand and are not likely to learn to, for young ladies are not supposed to feel such things, let alone admit to it. I think you are even more conflicted and confused because you are finding that you desire _me_."

I started gaping at her audacity soon after she began her list of presumptions, and by the time she finished I was flushing deeply and fuming nearly as much.

Then my captor's eyes meet my own, and I shiver. Dark eyes, sensual eyes, wild eyes - no, not wild; hers is a savagery that is all the more chilling because it is precisely controlled. Knowing eyes. Her gaze bores into me, and I have to look away.

A bare whisper. "Go on, deny that what I have said is the truth."

I open my mouth to protest, only to falter. I cannot deny it.

And so I bow to the inevitable, for she has the advantage of me in every way. She has deceived me, trapped me - could kill me if she wished, for I know the blade that hangs at her side is no ornament. But it is not that which unsettles me. By some sorcery she seems to know me better than I know myself, has effortlessly confronted me with my darkest, most secret desires. She dangles those hidden yearnings in front of me, and some instinct tells me she seeks not so much to taunt me as to test me; she is truly offering me these things if only I dare to accept.

I surrender. How can I not? She holds out her hand to me and I take it, allowing her to pull me towards her - to the other side of the carriage, to sit beside her on a seat not made for two.

She seems to soften now that she has secured this victory. Strange among the strange events of this day, she pauses to warn me before I venture any further down a path from which there is no turning back. It is a peculiar code of honor she follows.

"Understand they will call you a wolf too," she tells me. "They will call you unnatural for daring to go against their conventions. The price for accepting the forbidden fruit of knowledge is high."

Her ruby lips curve into a sensual smile. "But I have always found the freedom accorded by such knowledge more than worth the price. It is only those who turn away from it in fear who consider it sin to taste."

"Teach me to be a wolf, then," I whisper. I lean forward towards those ruby lips, and she kisses me fiercely. Her teeth pierce my lip, and I taste blood.

***

 _There will always be little girls in their cloaks setting forth into the woods and wild places of the world. And there will always be wolves in those wild places, ready to tear away their innocence. Sometimes the girl will escape, as she thinks it, unscathed, and go blithely on down the path to becoming the image of those who raised her. But, though society will consider her lost to them, sometimes she will embrace the wild that is shown to her. And that is how it should be._


End file.
